The Convenience Trap | Original
Our brain is magical. My IELTS listening score is 6. After two years working in an English-speaking environment, my score is still 6. That’s because I always use Zoom captions in meetings.
The Listening Challenge
I worry about being unable to hear clearly, especially since half the team is Indian. When I use Zoom captions, even after many weeks, my listening doesn’t improve. It’s only in the moments when I’m forced to listen without them and ask colleagues to repeat that I actually make progress.
With Zoom captions and the AI companion, I only truly focus on listening when the topic is highly relevant to me. Even then, I mostly find myself reading the captions. The brain is magical—if you give it a real challenge over several months, it will improve significantly.
The Convenience Trap
This is a perfect case study of the convenience trap. With GPS constantly available, our brains never bother to build a mental map. Why would they? But when you’re forced to navigate on your own, that spatial awareness develops.
It’s the same with vocabulary—if I skip every new word I encounter, my vocabulary will stay stuck at around 8,000 words. I remember in high school, when my vocabulary was only 3,000, I used a “stupid” method of looking up words in a printed dictionary while reading Paul Graham essays I’d printed. That’s how I expanded my vocabulary. Over the last 10 years, I’ve looked up thousands of words. But still, I often catch myself skipping new words in my reading.
The Gap Between 70% and 90%
After passing 13 courses in my Computer Application associate degree program (with 10 years of software engineering background), I’ve been reflecting on what actually separates high achievers from average performers.
The gap isn’t mysterious. It’s not about innate genius. Whether it’s exam scores (70% vs 90%), Gaokao scores (400–500 vs 600–650), or Codeforces ratings (1400 vs 2100), the pattern is observable and consistent.
What High Achievers Do Differently
People who consistently achieve top marks shared these concrete behaviors:
- Tolerance for confusion – They sit with difficult material longer, working through it until they truly understand it.
- Self-Correction – They systematically identify their own mistakes and weak points.
- Targeted Practice – They focus deliberately on their weakest areas, not just what they’re comfortable with.
- Volume – They simply do more exercises, more consistently.
- Deep Familiarity – They thoroughly internalize concepts rather than superficially covering them.
No Magic, Just Principles
This applies everywhere—academics, entrepreneurship, and competitive programming. High achievement comes from being detail-oriented, following proven principles consistently, and doing the unglamorous work of repetition.
In my software engineering career, I’ve seen this same pattern. The developer who becomes a senior isn’t just “talented”—they’ve debugged more code, read more documentation, and learned from more failures. The gap between good and great is built from hundreds of small, deliberate actions repeated consistently. It’s demystified once you see it clearly.